1 00:00:00,210 --> 00:00:04,680 My name and so on. And I also forgot to put my name in my slot. 2 00:00:06,660 --> 00:00:10,770 And I've come today to talk to you about the project that I manage. 3 00:00:10,860 --> 00:00:13,860 So I'm talking from an operational frontline perspective, 4 00:00:14,700 --> 00:00:21,450 which is in Rotherham and it's the Pathways Project and it's run by together for mental wellbeing. 5 00:00:21,450 --> 00:00:25,380 We're a mental health charity and the oldest mental health charity in England 6 00:00:26,310 --> 00:00:30,660 and also transition to adulthood and which we've heard a bit about already. 7 00:00:35,550 --> 00:00:39,390 So why why are we in existence? 8 00:00:39,390 --> 00:00:42,810 So the background to that is that, you know, 9 00:00:42,810 --> 00:00:48,780 blowing out the candles on an 80th birthday cake does not magically transform anyone into a fully functioning, 10 00:00:48,780 --> 00:00:52,020 mature adult, which is a relief to many of us. 11 00:00:53,980 --> 00:00:57,280 And this is something that teachers I obviously very interested in, 12 00:00:57,360 --> 00:01:04,770 and they are arguing for a distinct approach for young adults aged 18 to 24 within the criminal justice system. 13 00:01:05,070 --> 00:01:10,170 Because of that fact, you don't suddenly become responsible and not impulsive, don't take any risks. 14 00:01:10,650 --> 00:01:15,840 And that's simply backed up by the evidence we've seen about the age crime curve as well. 15 00:01:20,510 --> 00:01:28,400 So that is the case for offending. But it's also the age that which person is most likely to desist from crime with the right support. 16 00:01:29,300 --> 00:01:40,310 So with that in mind, two airlines have set up pilot projects that we're one of six and nationally and put together as 17 00:01:40,310 --> 00:01:44,990 it's a mental health charity with the only one of those six that has a mental health slot as well. 18 00:01:48,590 --> 00:01:55,940 So we're targeting 17 to 24 year olds and we chose 17 rather than 18 as a start to try 19 00:01:55,940 --> 00:02:00,890 and get some people who might be making that transition from child to adult services. 20 00:02:02,270 --> 00:02:14,770 So they should be at risk of or currently offending and or at risk of currently or currently overusing emergency services excuse me, mental distress. 21 00:02:14,770 --> 00:02:22,010 So that can be anything. It doesn't need to be a diagnosis, quite a broad term and willing to engage with the support. 22 00:02:22,130 --> 00:02:26,120 So it's nothing that can be statute truly of enforced. 23 00:02:29,810 --> 00:02:38,250 So what we see every day, our clients have all of these things going on with them, so that's okay. 24 00:02:38,750 --> 00:02:40,310 Much of what we've heard already. 25 00:02:40,850 --> 00:02:52,629 So they have had a childhood characterised by trauma, often being many different types of abuse or neglect as intergenerational exclusion plays. 26 00:02:52,630 --> 00:02:56,480 So, you know, families have been experiencing this for a long time. 27 00:02:57,470 --> 00:03:04,490 Substance misuse issues, offending behaviour, homelessness, poor educational attainment. 28 00:03:05,060 --> 00:03:13,580 And all of this is usually in the context of either mental illness or distress autism, ADHD and learning disability. 29 00:03:17,910 --> 00:03:24,840 So the aims of our project that the obvious one is to reduce the police or emergency service contact. 30 00:03:24,840 --> 00:03:31,410 So that could be either people being arrested, it could be them making calls, as, you know, victims of crime. 31 00:03:32,050 --> 00:03:41,250 Because what we realised quite early on is we're looking at both victims and perpetrators and we would also like to work with wherever possible, 32 00:03:41,250 --> 00:03:46,379 like probation officers who, you know, to work with them when they're doing pre-sentence reports, for example, 33 00:03:46,380 --> 00:03:55,800 or solicitors to provide the right information about people's diagnoses and needs in relation to their funding for the individual. 34 00:03:55,800 --> 00:04:00,660 We want to increase their wellbeing and resilience and a lot of people, you know, 35 00:04:00,660 --> 00:04:07,500 they haven't had the kind of environments where they've been able to develop coping skills or learn from the caregivers. 36 00:04:08,100 --> 00:04:13,350 So that's a really important piece of work. We want to reduce exclusion from networks, 37 00:04:13,350 --> 00:04:25,919 communities and services because these are people who are and multiply disadvantaged in this area because of their needs. 38 00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:31,590 They are very complex and can be problematic to engage with and to keep in services 39 00:04:32,100 --> 00:04:38,940 so they fall through the gaps every time the staff there for working with them. 40 00:04:38,940 --> 00:04:45,280 I find that very difficult because they don't fit into those neat little boxes I've been provided by services as. 41 00:04:45,300 --> 00:04:49,320 But again, as we've heard, you know, you have this diagnosis, you have that need. 42 00:04:49,770 --> 00:04:56,370 They're coming with a range of needs and often they might not be meeting the thresholds for particular things, 43 00:04:56,370 --> 00:05:00,239 but there's such a lot of things going on that they're in absolute chaos. 44 00:05:00,240 --> 00:05:08,580 And you just know that if left, they will eventually meet a threshold by which time there's been plenty of missed opportunities to intervene. 45 00:05:09,720 --> 00:05:14,190 So one of the things that we like to offer and with any other staff, 46 00:05:14,190 --> 00:05:23,100 this involved with a client we're working with is training around and working collaboratively with problematic or challenging behaviour. 47 00:05:24,060 --> 00:05:32,370 So providing strategies and techniques so it's involving the client in their own sort of management of their 48 00:05:32,370 --> 00:05:40,860 behaviour whilst also keeping boundaries but trying to move away from punitive approaches whenever possible. 49 00:05:42,690 --> 00:05:46,260 So we hope to improve responses locally by doing that, 50 00:05:46,560 --> 00:05:57,930 but also feed into strategic responses locally because we have a project board made up of senior staff from police, mental health and local authority, 51 00:05:58,410 --> 00:06:06,870 and our clients are able to either attend that meeting to talk about anything from their experiences with us, 52 00:06:06,990 --> 00:06:12,690 with other services and what it's like to be in person, arrested, all those kind of things. 53 00:06:13,380 --> 00:06:19,890 And so they can even attend, say, themselves, or we have a system where we collect feedback, you know, 54 00:06:19,890 --> 00:06:29,400 any kind of feedback from really small and opinions about where they'd like to be seen for an appointment to right up to the larger issues. 55 00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:38,170 So we offer a 12 month intervention. And that's something that we started off saying three months, six months, 56 00:06:38,500 --> 00:06:46,329 ended up at 12 months because we realise it takes a lot of time just to build a relationship and build that trust, 57 00:06:46,330 --> 00:06:54,190 which Sarah was speaking about this this morning. They don't have you know, they are used to people flitting in and out of their lives. 58 00:06:54,190 --> 00:07:00,940 And so that's really important. And also to not rush in with the questions, the heavy questions about, you know, 59 00:07:00,940 --> 00:07:05,950 what's been going on in their life and what should we do less rushing with a plan because that just doesn't work. 60 00:07:06,940 --> 00:07:09,280 And that 12 months is pretty flexible, we'll say. 61 00:07:09,290 --> 00:07:18,429 We've got one client who's been with us for about about 20 months now because during that time we were working with her, 62 00:07:18,430 --> 00:07:21,910 she became pregnant, exhausted, couldn't couldn't just discharge her. 63 00:07:22,810 --> 00:07:32,890 And so that allows us to to respond individually to people's needs and take place in the client's preferred environment. 64 00:07:33,100 --> 00:07:38,950 Again, it's quite simple thing, but so many services invite people to come to their building. 65 00:07:39,460 --> 00:07:47,050 It doesn't matter how far away they are. They have the money to get the bus there, you know, do they have a choice in the time or the date? 66 00:07:47,290 --> 00:07:50,760 And very often that leaves people not coming to their appointment. 67 00:07:50,770 --> 00:07:52,330 So that's another missed opportunity. 68 00:07:52,360 --> 00:08:00,880 So we quickly realised people like to be seen at home, mainly as mentioned, would take time to build that very relationship, 69 00:08:01,210 --> 00:08:10,510 which in many services is not just through resource and financial constraints is just not possible. 70 00:08:11,380 --> 00:08:17,709 And before rushing into the work, we offer client centred support. 71 00:08:17,710 --> 00:08:23,260 So we identify people using a bespoke tool about the three hardest things that they've 72 00:08:23,260 --> 00:08:28,690 identified and what that would look like if they would begin to start working on those things. 73 00:08:28,690 --> 00:08:33,520 And what might their life look if they were without those problems. 74 00:08:34,760 --> 00:08:41,229 And we've also had training recently from the multi systemic therapy team in Sheffield around work and the family. 75 00:08:41,230 --> 00:08:46,180 So we've shared goal setting and bringing in the family to help people achieve their goals. 76 00:08:52,320 --> 00:08:56,990 So psychologically informed supports. 77 00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:05,100 What does that mean exactly? So we use a therapeutic relationship as the most important means of learning and facilitating change with the client. 78 00:09:05,790 --> 00:09:16,230 And because people may not have had a healthy relationship to to work out those things from being younger, they may not have had those role models. 79 00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:19,350 You know, it's so important for us, first and foremost, 80 00:09:19,350 --> 00:09:26,230 to create a safe space environment where we can be really honest and say, you know, how is that working when you do this? 81 00:09:26,250 --> 00:09:29,250 How does that make me feel and vice versa? 82 00:09:29,520 --> 00:09:34,200 Is there anything we could do differently? And obviously, there's always hiccups in any relationships. 83 00:09:34,200 --> 00:09:38,460 And, you know, the professional relationship is is not immune to that. 84 00:09:38,470 --> 00:09:45,480 So we use those hiccups and those problems as learning events and kind of celebrate that and, 85 00:09:45,870 --> 00:09:49,650 you know, say we're here alongside you, so let's do it together. 86 00:09:51,300 --> 00:09:56,010 And we try and frame people's difficulties from a strength and resilience perspective. 87 00:09:56,160 --> 00:09:59,819 So that means that they're viewing it in a way. So you can overcome this. 88 00:09:59,820 --> 00:10:06,390 You have these tools, you have this already there, which sounds again obvious, but is so often not the case. 89 00:10:08,070 --> 00:10:14,670 And then once we sort of practice them within our own relationship, we'll start to say, well, let's extend that to everyday life situations. 90 00:10:14,670 --> 00:10:20,760 So, you know, with your parents or with your friend, with your probation officer, whoever it is. 91 00:10:21,720 --> 00:10:30,270 So that is generalising the learning and also just reflecting at the end of every session, increasing self-awareness, 92 00:10:30,480 --> 00:10:37,890 the ability to think about impact on others and to be more aware of what they have been learning, what those skills are. 93 00:10:39,180 --> 00:10:43,160 And as I mentioned, so contracting around challenging or problematic behaviour. 94 00:10:43,170 --> 00:10:49,500 So asking the person what problems do you think might likely come up and you know what has been a problem before? 95 00:10:49,830 --> 00:10:54,740 Do you get angry? If so, you know, how should we deal with that if that comes up, you know, 96 00:10:54,760 --> 00:10:59,940 would you like to leave the room for 5 minutes or would you like to go away and come back another day? 97 00:10:59,940 --> 00:11:11,059 That sort of thing? Now because most people find it quite difficult to sit and just talk for an hour or whatever, 98 00:11:11,060 --> 00:11:17,030 or just be face to face chatting about these kind of issues. We do a lot of this kind of alongside the practical stuff. 99 00:11:17,030 --> 00:11:23,870 So, you know, obviously all the things that are going on elsewhere in their lives that might be going along to important appointments, 100 00:11:24,350 --> 00:11:29,600 supporting through the police and court process and assisting with issues around housing, 101 00:11:29,600 --> 00:11:38,990 debt benefits, employment and training, linking in with community resources and a lot of advocating on its behalf with other agencies. 102 00:11:40,220 --> 00:11:44,900 A lot. And we're quite lucky. 103 00:11:44,900 --> 00:11:53,210 We've got really good partnership working in place from the office that we had as the district commander of Rover and police and on board. 104 00:11:53,270 --> 00:11:58,880 And it was through meeting with him and somebody together that this project got off the ground. 105 00:12:00,200 --> 00:12:03,350 So he was instrumental in setting that up locally. 106 00:12:03,950 --> 00:12:10,070 As mentioned by the Academy, Trust gave us a lot of funding to set the project up. 107 00:12:10,940 --> 00:12:17,840 We also have funding from the CCG and the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner and we have 108 00:12:18,260 --> 00:12:23,989 office space given to us by the local council and we're co-located with the Vulnerable Persons Unit, 109 00:12:23,990 --> 00:12:30,590 which is a police department, which again is really helpful and just giving those links to, 110 00:12:30,620 --> 00:12:30,900 you know, 111 00:12:30,920 --> 00:12:40,819 staff and also information and some of the feedback that we've had from and other professionals are working with clients that we share have said, 112 00:12:40,820 --> 00:12:49,550 you know, that really helps us to gain better access to agencies like the police and the local NHS Mental Health Trust because of our own links. 113 00:12:53,010 --> 00:12:59,070 And we will be evaluated at the end of our three years by Sheffield Hallam sense of community justice. 114 00:12:59,580 --> 00:13:03,840 And that initial interim data is looking quite positive. 115 00:13:04,380 --> 00:13:12,420 Arrests and police contact is down. We are seeing is a rate of a rise in reporting of an instance as a victim. 116 00:13:13,290 --> 00:13:18,599 However, I think that's probably more hopefully a positive thing and that people are gaining more 117 00:13:18,600 --> 00:13:23,190 confidence in being able to report what's happening to them where perhaps they hadn't before, 118 00:13:24,210 --> 00:13:31,820 and also self-reported increases in wellbeing and other sort of positive feedback from the 119 00:13:31,830 --> 00:13:40,110 partners and stakeholders as well about our involvement in websites and further information. 120 00:13:41,550 --> 00:13:42,040 Thank you.